Prince Harry’s lawsuit against Associated Newspapers Limited, the publisher of the Daily Mail, has taken an unexpected turn, as something that wasn’t part of the Prince’s script has come to light.
The messages in question are a series of Facebook messages exchanged between Harry and Charlotte Griffiths, then a journalist for the Mail on Sunday, between December 2011 and January 2012. This partly contradicts what Harry himself stated before the High Court in London in January of this year.
In that statement, Harry said that he is not friends with journalists and that any information about his private life could not have come from his inner circle. The problem is, the messages tell a different story.
What Prince Harry’s messages actually say
Harry was the one who took the first step. On December 4, 2011, he sent her a Facebook friend request and gave her his phone number, along with the message, “It’s H, in case you were confused by the name and picture!!! X.” What followed was a series of conversations in which the prince called Griffiths “sugar,” said goodbye with kisses, and wrote things like “Miss our movie snuggles!!”
The most striking exchange is from January 22, 2012, when she tells him that they missed him at a party and he responds from Cornwall, where he was with the army, saying that he wished he could have been there and that, if he had gone, he would have been “drinking u under the table, obvi!!” That’s not exactly the tone of someone who cut off all contact as soon as they found out the other person was a journalist.
What Harry said in court and how it contradicts the facts
In his testimony in January, Harry stated that he had only met Griffiths once, at a party, and that the next day, when he found out she was a journalist, he “had words” with their mutual friend Arthur Landon, period.
However, the messages show that the relationship continued for months. According to Griffiths’ testimony in court, in June 2012, the two of them attended a late-night party hosted by Landon, and call records show a phone call at 2:50 a.m. and three text messages the next day, hours before Harry attended the Trooping the Color.
Griffiths, who is now an editor at the same newspaper, had told the court that they moved in shared social circles. Harry, on the other hand, said he had “no idea” if that was the case.
What happens next in Prince Harry’s trial
The eleven-week trial came to a close with closing arguments that, between both sides, totaled a not-insignificant 392,164 words. The newspaper’s defense called the accusations “speculative” and “frankly desperate.”
Judge Nicklin announced that after Easter, he will work full-time on drafting the judgment, but he did not give any specific timeframe. So, we’ll have to wait.